The Girl in the Woods by Gregg Olsen

This is an excellent novel by best-seller writer, Gregg Olsen. First , may I comment on the characters which I am 100% coincidental. I just watched a British TV series that is called "The Silent Witness" which stars Amanda Burton (the old series, not the current one). Here,  our coroner has a blue collar sister with a son who idolizes his aunt . Her sister (the boy's mother ) is a single mom and is assigned to take care of their senile mother. It's strange that the poorer sister with a son is the one assigned to take care of the mom while the richer one with no teen can just visit when she has time. The difference is the coroner's sister in the book has a spouse and the mother of the two is a cantankerous old woman. Why they did not shove the banshee in a home to end everyone's problems is beyond me.
         Anyway, in both cases the boy flees his home and opts for the home of his more tolerant aunt. Then the similarity ends.



Unlike her British counterpart, our coroner is more down to earth and has a good rapport with her partner and colleagues. Their dialogues are funny without being forced and gives you an idea how normal people usually work. The British coroner was very cold, irritating and a "know-it-all" like the TV character in Bones played by Emily Deschanel. Both of these tv characters are so arrogant and obnoxious, you'd just like to slap their faces silly. Yeah!Yeah! Yeah! You both are soooooo great!

I digress! Pardon me! Back to the story. They find a decaying foot of a young girl in the woods. Then they find her mother who is a hoarder with a past that was initially thought to be connected to another simultaneous murder . It was indeed connected but in another vein. Gregg Olsen was very good in going back and forth with the murders and eventually tying them up in the end in a surprising way. Highly recommended!